Lab Equipment for 3D Cell Culture

When starting to work with 3D cell cultures it is essential to be aware of the differences to common 2D cultures in terms of expenses and equipment as well as the type and dimension of 3D you intend to work with. The various culture methods require different equipment, efforts, and awareness on handling and analytics. Therefore, it is crucial to choose the right structure and architecture, the respective carrier/scaffold, the equipment for generating and culturing the models, and the methodology to manipulate and analyze them to be able to perform the process for the application answering the hypothesis. There is a wide range of commercially available lab equipment, bioreactors, consumables, carriers/scaffolds, and assays necessary to establish, perform, and analyze 3D cell culture. Handling, manipulation, and analysis of 3D cultures, differing significantly from 2D cultures, with the respective requirements and efforts will be considered as well. An overview on scaffold free 3D cell culture will be provided in Chap. 9.